


Getting Home

by Laurasauras



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Angst, Break Up, F/M, Marriage Proposal, Sadstuck
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-26
Updated: 2019-02-26
Packaged: 2019-11-05 21:30:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,172
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17926703
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Laurasauras/pseuds/Laurasauras
Summary: Eridan is excited to start the next stage of his life with Feferi. She ... has other plans.





	Getting Home

**Author's Note:**

> This is a break-up fic! I love the pairing but felt like writing some angst, don't read if you're after fluff.

 

It was going to be romantic.

Eridan had driven them for hours to get to the beach, just the two of them with the tent they used when they were kids in the backyard, playing at camping. They sang songs from a playlist Feferi made for them and she pushed her seat back so she could stretch her long legs on the dashboard. It had only been six months but it  _ worked _ like nothing else. They clicked together, it was still them, best friends since before they could even walk and now they just had that extra something sprinkled on. 

See, their parents had met while they were doing those strange baby swimming lessons. They’d met in the pool. The two of them had gone swimming at almost every opportunity that presented itself since then, whether it was spending all summer holidays at Eridan’s family’s beach house or going to the local pool or even the rather pathetic blow-up one that Feferi had set up in her backyard, sipping fruity drinks and pretending they were at a resort. So going camping, to this place, right on the beach, just the two of them, it was going to be the best holiday they had ever been on. 

Eridan found the plot he’d booked and pointed out the path that lead to the beach. It was so close that there was sand mixed in with the dirt and leaves. He shoved Feferi playfully in that direction and set up the camp by himself. He knew she was just as capable, but he liked taking care of her.

Eridan had loved Feferi so intensely from the moment he'd met her that he honestly had no idea when that love had become romantic or if it always had been. He might have blushed when their parents joked about them getting married one day but he’d never actually questioned it. Of course they would. It was them.

And then, yeah, the plan was derailed a bit when Feferi started dating other boys, but Eridan didn’t hold it against her or anything. He knew that she was just playing at dating, that they wouldn’t last. He imagined teasing her about those silly boys when they’d been married for fifty years, imagined that future even as he held her as she cried over romances that meant nothing. 

They went to their graduation dance together, just as friends, and Feferi had never looked so beautiful. She called him handsome and he got lost in her eyes and they weren’t “just friends” anymore. They kissed for the first time while a trashy pop song played in the background and Eridan thought for sure that this was what  _ home _ felt like.

When he was finished setting up the campsite, he found her in the water. She still looked beautiful, even with her nose red with cold and her impractically long hair plastered to her face with water. She never tied it back when she swam, she liked to feel it float around her like a mermaid. He loved that she still took such joy in things that had been important to them as kids, even if they were too old to play mermaids now. He felt special, like he knew her in a way that no one else ever would. 

He pulled off his shirt and ran into the surf, ignoring the cold and tackling her into the water because he could. She laughed and picked him up and threw him deeper, the water making him weightless to her.

Neither of them wanted to leave the water but their grumbling stomachs eventually forced them. Feferi figured out the camp stove and made plain baked beans while Eridan poked leaves at the fire.

Eridan brought out a bottle of champagne and Feferi clapped her hands excitedly. He had to get her to pop the cork because it made him nervous, but it didn’t ruin the mood. If anything, it made her look at him in that fond way, like he was hopeless and she loved him for it.

He stared at his bag while she poured the champagne, gathering his nerves. He pulled out the ring.

‘Eridan, what are you doing?’ she asked. 

‘I’ve loved you my whole life,’ he said.

‘Eridan, we’re 18.’

‘I always thought it was you.’ 

‘Eridan, stop, this is crazy!’

‘Feferi Peixes, will you marry me?’

He stared at her with hope and love. He was looking at her crazy half dried hair all piled up on top of her head. He was looking at her fingernails still painted in rainbow colours from when she and her sister were getting along for five minutes last week. He was looking at the shirt that she’d stolen from him years ago and was now too small for her where it had once been too big. 

She stared at him with horror and for the first time, Eridan felt doubt.

‘Eridan,  _ no _ ,’ she said. ‘We’re 18, we’ve been dating  _ six months _ . I love you but this is insane!’

He dropped the ring and stood up. She was supposed to accept.

‘Eridan,  _ wait _ ,’ she said. 

He didn’t realise he was going anywhere until she asked him to wait. His feet carried him to the beach.

They were four hours away from home. He had to drive home with her for four hours. They were camping, in a two person tent that had felt tiny when they were children, that he’d assumed would be fine because of course they’d be cuddling up together. They were alone at the beach and home was far away and he’d thought he’d brought his home with him when he brought her, but now …

He sat on the sand and watched the waves and thought that the real tragedy was that he had ruined the beach for himself. He loved the beach. And now it would always be the place where Fef said “no”.

He heard her when she came and sat next to him, the gentle sound of feet against evening-damp sand, but he didn’t look away from the waves. The foam dragging back and then stumbling forward again was soothing. 

‘It’s a beautiful ring,’ she said.

He looked at her. She was holding the ring in her palm, staring at it so she wouldn’t have to stare at him. 

‘I know your taste in jewellery,’ he said, looking back at the waves.

‘Does this have to mean we’re broken up?’ she said. Her voice cracked like she was going to cry. Like he’d hurt  _ her. _

He thought about it.

He thought about her. 

He thought about keeping the ring in his room for another year, five years, trying again.

‘I’m not asking you to marry me next week,’ he said. ‘We could be engaged for ten years for all I care.’

‘No …’ she said, quietly. 

He nodded, because there was no getting words past the lump in his throat. He couldn’t see the waves through the tears in his eyes. 

It was supposed to be romantic.


End file.
